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partake of food. A new lodge is erected and fur nished more elegant than any other of the village, by the women, each vieing with the other to do the best in providing their simple articles of the Indian household.
In the evening, while the -feast goes on and the father s lodge is full of guests, the women and children come to the lodge with a great number of pitch torches, and two women enter and take the bride away between them : the men all the time taking no heed of what goes on. They take her to the lodge, chanting as they go, and making a great flourish with their torches. Late at night the men rise up, and the father and mother, or those standing in their stead, take the groom between them to the lodge, while the same flourish of torches and chant goes on as before. They take him into the lodge and set him on the robes, by the bride. This time the torches are not put out, but are laid one after another in the centre of the lodge. And this is the first fire of the new pair, which must not be allowed to die out for some time. In fact, as a rule, in time of peace Indians never let their lodge-fires go out so long as they remain in one place.
When all the torches are laid down and the fire burns bright, they are supposed to be married. The ceremony is over, and the company go away in the dark. Late in the fall, the old chief made the marriage-feast, and at that feast neither I nor his daughter took meat, or any part
